I went walking through Beaumont Park with Errol Flynn the other day. Or it could have been Bilbo Baggins or heroes from Game of Thrones.

This most romantic and emotionally compelling of parks could have been a backdrop for Middle Earth or the Seven Kingdoms or a swashbuckler from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

It’s easy for the imagination to run riot if you approach these dramatic hillside grounds from the right direction.

I took the path along the old railway line that is accessed from the entrance to the park at the bottom of Butternab Road.

Once down the steep slope, that can be difficult in bad weather, the trail arrows beneath an overhang of trees into silence and history where fantasy is not far away.

Along here is the seldom visited lower entrance to the park that is irongated and wonderfully castellated.

You could repel invaders from these ramparts and I strode them with Flynn, the greatest swashbuckler of his day, visualising battles that morphed into the more modern cinematic creations of the Hobbit and Game of Thrones.

Through the gateway, avoiding the arrows and boiling oil of the defenders above, and stone staircases and walkways rise between foliage and sheer cliff faces. It’s only after battling your way upwards that you emerge back into today. No wonder it was massively popular when it was first opened in 1883.

Why travel all the way to Blackpool when a wonderland had been built on a Huddersfield hillside?

Many years ago I lived opposite the park and took it for granted until I discovered the route that tracked the old railway line from Meltham and discovered a different perspective.

This was my first return visit for a long time and the magic remains. The park was created as a result of the philanthropy of wealthy landowner Henry Frederick Beaumont who gave 20 acres of Dungeon Wood and four fields to Huddersfield Corporation for the purpose.

He and his son Henry Ralph are remembered on street signs in the area. Two miles of paths were laid and the landscaping was inspired. It still is. They even built a refreshment room that looked like – and which was called – The Castle on a plateau halfway up.

It had a dancefloor, was used for roller skating and peacocks strutted on the lawn out front. In 1914 a ham and egg tea cost a shilling.

Sadly, The Castle closed in 1959 and was demolished in 1964.

Elsewhere, the park had open spaces, grand walkways, hidden arbors for stolen courtship, a bandstand, paddling pool, lake and cascades of water.

The railway line was there before the park was designed, running along the lower edge from Lockwood and through the now sealed Butternab Tunnel. Stations were at Netherton and Healey House. The Meltham station site is now occupied by Morrisons supermarket. Which, some say, is progress.

But thank goodness the park retains its glory, thanks the volunteers of The Friends of Beaumont Park and Kirklees. I shall be taking that route into history again very soon.

Errol said he’d meet me there.